The
canonization of films is a slippery slope. For films like Citizen Kane and Vertigo,
the process toward critical acceptance required time and vocal support
attesting to their merits. Met with some resistance, the two films have etched
spots within the critical community as being the most vital motion pictures of
all time. But as critical theory has now unfolded (or rather, forced) into the
hands of young bloggers where the ability to watch just about any film is a
Google search away, there’s a palpable sense that the cinematic hierarchy is
being shaken.

Like
a majority of contemporary bloggers, I grew up on the films of the 90s. Taking
the good with the bad, the decade offered its share of compelling mainstream
efforts as the period marked a significant movement toward the development of
special effects. Films like James Cameron’s Terminator
2: Judgment Day and Steven Spielberg’s Jurassic
Park, released earlier in the decade, harmoniously merged special effects
with a compelling action narrative that eventually gave way to large scale
digital-effects cinema.

The
technical advancements on display made the decade a particularly bipolar one.
Divided in sects, one group of filmmakers immersed themselves in big budget
pictures (James Cameron and Michael Bay). Other groups pursued new methods of
filmmaking that opposed the excess on display in the aforementioned big-budget
efforts, with the pursuit of stripped down dramatic efforts presented by
foreign directors like Lars von Trier and the Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne.

It
was a decade that saw filmmakers of the 70s provides some of their most
compelling works, while the newcomers etched their spots in the critical
community. Filmmakers of the 70s like Woody Allen, Robert Altman, Brian De
Palma and Martin Scorsese remained vital voices in American cinema, while Paul
Thomas Anderson, Steven Soderbergh, and Quentin Tarantino emerged as heirs to
the moniker of best American filmmaker. The decade offered the final film of
perhaps the greatest director of all time, Stanley Kubrick – a much delayed
final effort that was well worth the wait. Terrence Malick would also return
from a near two-decade hiatus, departing from the narrative tendencies he
adopted in the 1970s for a stream-of-consciousness type of cinema that defines
his most recent works.

The
contributions of world cinema and its implications into contemporary American cinema
is especially notable – from Wong Kar-Wai’s bombastic visual sensibilities to
the hushed precision of Abbas Kiarostami’s work were refreshing, as both
filmmakers saw their work reach crucial distribution over the time period with
the advent of DVDs in the latter portion of the decade. The subsequent growth
of the market has afforded cinephiles the opportunity to catch up on many films
that were otherwise unobtainable during the 90s.

Whereas
most would be quick to mention the Disney renaissance of the 90s with films
like Aladdin, Beauty and the Beast, and The
Lion King holding a place within my own childhood, it’s the film of Studio
Ghibli that marks the greatest achievement in animation for the decade. Hayao
Miyazaki and Isao Takahata led the charge with impeccable works of grand visual
mastery and true thematic resonance.

Exploring
and rewatching films of the 1990s has been an incredibly rewarding experience.
The decade’s diversity and excitement is particularly assured – rigid formal
traditionalism, visual orgies, delicate sensuality, and visceral provocation
were markers of single films. The
foreign offerings were particularly notable, and will be reflected as such as I
embark on constructing a list of my top fifty films of the decade. Yet to label
anything from the 1990s as a cultural artifact boggles my mind. Is there
anything that’s offered on my forthcoming list that will earn the same level of
notoriety as bestowed on films like Citizen
Kane and Vertigo? It’s a question
of time, but as I distance myself from a decade that shaped my initial
understanding of cinema, I’d say it’s a yes.